Our View: As national spotlight shines on Saginaw, focus needs to stay on changing the culture of violence

The following is the view of The Saginaw News Editorial Board following several press conferences, demonstrations and the planned visit of the Rev. Jesse Jackson in light of the Milton Hall shooting and the homicides of 19 people in the city in 2012.

Marked evidence covers a sidewalk after a shooting in the 1400 block of Dillon Street in Saginaw Wednesday afternoon that resulted in one fatality.

SAGINAW, MI — As Saginaw holds into its spot in the national spotlight because of the police shooting of a homeless man, violence on the street continues unabated.

A 6-year-old girl was shot and killed Wednesday night, making her the 19th homicide in the city and the second child killed this year. Saginaw is on track to double the number of homicides from last year, when there were 12 slayings, and there are still four months left in the year.

We are excelling in the wrong thing.

While getting answers in the July 1 shooting death of Milton Hall outside a Saginaw shopping plaza is important — and the groups, coalitions and celebrities like Jesse Jackson parading through town are making that clear — we need to retain a focus on the bigger issue of violence wreaking havoc in our streets.

In many, too many, parts of Saginaw, it's not safe to leave your house at night. It's not safe to ride a bike outside. It's not safe to be a child.

We wish there was a simple solution to the violence plaguing our communities and cutting our young peoples' lives short. We are sure that the groups forming and calling for justice, and the people coming in from out of town denouncing our police department, also wish they had the solution.

What we do know is that pointing fingers and yelling at one another is not the answer. All that does is incite more violence, more anger, more of what is making Saginaw the face of hopelessness.

Instead, we want our people to care about what is happening in the community, to care enough to step forward and tell police what they know about the shootings that have claimed a 6-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 21-year-old, a 22-year-old, the list goes on and on.

We want people to care about what is happening to our mentally ill and homeless residents so there isn't another Milton Hall.

We want people to care enough that when someone is shot, whether by police or another citizen, that the investigation is swift and thorough and we know that safety of the Saginaw community is priority.

Many point out that Milton Hall was not cared about in life, yet now in death he has become a symbol for the issues that plague Saginaw.

Let us make his death, and every slaying — from the first to the 19th — a clarion call to come together, not to lay blame, but to lay a foundation for a peaceful future.